Familiarize yourself with these German place names related to the type of noble who ruled them.

The late linguistics professor Arta Johnson was a genealogist with a knack for storytelling. One of her favorite yarns was about a researcher who came to her, frustrated that he’d found the name of his family’s village of origin on the immigrant ancestor’s tombstone, but had never found the town on a map.

When asked the name of the town, he replied, “Gross Herzogtum, Baden”—which, as it turns out, isn’t a village name, but German for “Grand Duchy of Baden.”